Continuing from the last post, here is a photo slide show of Onasadya in the All Spice Restaurant.
Travel
Onam Festival at Cardamom County
As Amie and other contributors mentioned in their posts, the Harvest Festival and the time of giving thanks has come to Kerala and to Cardamom County. I had the great opportunity to be on property and experience the colorful festival of Onam. Being part of both guest and staff, I could see all aspects of the event: from preparation to the final event. Onam is a ten day festival as Amie’s post explains, but the most important day of Onam is the 9th day, which is oddly called “First Onam” because that is the day that King Mahabali actually descends to Kerala. But any day of Onam seems like the Keralites’ spirits were soaring. All the staff at Cardamom County have great warm and happy smiles but during this festival season it felt like their warmth was doubled.
Borneoculars: Observations from a Scientific Expedition in Borneo
Guest Author: Nicole Kravec
Indiana Jones would be proud of the entire scientific expedition team. For two weeks we trekked through the jungles of Malaysia’s Imbak Canyon, the “biological gene bank” in the heart of the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo. It was one of the best – and most adventurous – trips of my life.
Thevara, Thanksgiving
Kerala’s Finest
Urbanscape
Vimeo is one of the many slippery slopes on the mountainous terrain aka the internets. The creativity unleashed there can knock you head over heels. Nonetheless, we must risk those slopes. And give credit where it is due. Just two hours ago Moritz Oberholzer commented on this video, and how it was created (including his credit where due): Continue reading
Desert Blues
Last year, during the summer prior to starting college, I worked at Feynan in Jordan teaching English to the children of the local Bedouin community.
The hybrid of Berber, Arab, Western and black African music styles of the Malian group Tinariwen serves as a sound track to his experience. I had the pleasure of hearing some members of the group in a small venue last year, and that sound of desert yearning, or “asuf”, was almost palpable. Take a listen to the embedded songs in the multimedia files in both of the above links and tell me if you agree.
…soon it will once again be time for Tinariwen — which operates as a collective, with anywhere from five to nine members, depending on factors like who has herds to tend or whose wife is pregnant — to move out of its cultural space and into ours. And with that, the feeling of asuf will return, feeding a yearning for the desert even as it powers the music.
Music To Travel With
Speaking of Wim Wenders and good music, one of the great musical entrepreneurs that Wenders has collaborated with more than once–see Paris, Texas (1984) and Buena Vista Social Club (1999)–is Ry Cooder. If you daydream of traveling to Cuba, and there is a soundtrack to that daydream, it is very likely due to Cooder’s work starting in 1996 with a group of Cuban musicians that led to some performances, then several albums, and eventually that documentary film by Wenders.
If slide guitar evokes the southwest United States for you, that too is likely Cooder’s doing. Bringing it closer to home (geographically but not in any other way) for those of us in Kerala, his cover of The Coast of Malabar, recorded with The Chieftains on their album The Long Black Veil is a melancholy ballad. Do not listen to it unless you are in romantic wallow mode.
Instead, if you want to travel a bit more with music listen and kick your heels up at the same time, listen to the last track on that album. The Rocky Road to Dublin, a collaboration between The Chieftains and The Rolling Stones will send you off with a smile. Back to Ry Cooder, thanks are due to Alec Wilkinson for his reverential post (not really a review) about this new release.
Organikos 
